The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Cloud computing and storage solutions enable users to store and process their data in third-party data centers, which allows easy access and sharing of resources, data, and information among computers and other mobile devices. While the users access to the third party data centers or host computers, the users may be exposed potentially hostile environment of the third party data centers or host computers. Further, the users may wish to make a secure communication with the third party data centers or host computers so that the users do not remain any traces in the third party data centers or host computers.
Many technologies have been developed to provide safe and secure communication among various applications, drivers, machines, services and processes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,977,842 to McCorkendale discloses a system using a hypervisor. In this system, the hypervisor manages public and/or private keys and inject keys and encrypted data into a VM to decrypt, which allows for the secure exchange of encrypted data between VMs. However, this system is limited to VM's running on a given hypervisor as it directly injects the data into the VM, rather than using a messaging system.
Others have sought to solve the problem by providing a secure VM to handle transactions between an untrusted VM and a service provider. For example, US Patent application number 2014/0137115 to Tosa discloses that a good VM is used as a proxy for sensitive web communications between a client and a server to secure the communication, and inject the resulting information into the bad VM at a virtualized hardware level. However, this application fails to provide an environment and services for secure communication between applications and VM's.
Others have sought to solve the problem by providing security by isolation. For example, U.S. Patent Application 20130318594 to Hoy discloses a system using a VM and secure tunnel to provide internet access with security by isolation. In this system, the hypervisor is used to provide limited access in and out of the VM for printing, clipboard and file sharing. However, similar to Tosa, this application fails to provide an environment and services for secure communication between applications and VM's.
Thus, there is still a need for an improved systems and methods to facilitate secure communications between processes, servers and VMs.